Think

This last Sunday we spoke on Mark 7 and the call of Jesus to all the broken hearted, which turns out is every one of us. The big issue at hand is our shared inner drive for connection, and our ever mutual inner frustration with disconnection, relationally, with everyone in different degrees at different times. We all know how agitating it is to have our WiFi go wonky and leave us frayed with disconnectivity. This is just a small picture of the big relational problem we have beginning with God and working out into every other relationship we have in this world. ‘Drama’ therefore, is a word that resonates deeply with us all. Yet we have this insatiable thirst for deep meaningful genuine connections in this world and beyond, which leads us to the bad news. The bad news is we all have a ‘divine disconnect’. We are disconnected from God by sin that we were born with, which turns out is a huge handicap in our crazy pursuit for connections. With this inherited broken ‘receiver’ or modem if you will, we still seek to make connections, yet ironically the more we try the more distant we can become. We may get ‘religious’ and decide to follow the creeds and directives of a religious system, but Jesus says here in Mark 7, even being religious before the true and living God only serves to disconnect us further from God. We may try to do good in a non-religious way and just follow our hearts and try to love without restraint, but Jesus declares that even our best intentions fall short of ‘true love’ leaving us at times distanced from even the ones we love most. In fact, he states that our hearts in a spiritual or relational way are actually terminally ill and corrupted by sin like a kind of cancer tainting everything that comes out of it. So here we are, broken hearted, unable to love and connect properly. Unable to fix the mess and the drama that so often surrounds our lives. Humbled. This is bad news in deed, yet the good news of Jesus is that God has come into our world to love in the ways we cannot, to fulfill the commands of God that we so often fail, and to take upon himself the debt of death we deserve for the sin that disconnects us all. True love, pure and selfless love, God’s love conqoures and covers us all through Jesus. We cannot connect with him, but he has freely chosen in love and CONNECT with us! This is truly good news! Now, when we stop our broken pursuit to embrace and in-turn receive tho loving embrace of Jesus, he brings the connection we cannot find, forgives our moral failures, and heals our ill fragmented hearts. Today, everyday, let’s choose to turn from our pursuits of broken connections and receive in faith his embrace in humble repentance and be made well. From there we find true freedom to connect with God and one another with clarity, grace, and true humble love.

Scientific Quotes That Blur The Boundaries Between Mysticism and Science

In this article are quotes that seem to smear the line between mysticism and science. These are quotes from well respected scientists that seem to suggest what the mystics have been saying for thousands of years and makes you question the true nature of reality.

In some ways, the mission of recording a Christmas EP every year is almost as conceptually audacious as Stevens' Fifty States Project, given how few seasonal songs are worthy of interpretation. Thus, Songs for Christmas contains a lot of repetition, another method by which to chart the progress of Sufjan as performer and arranger. For instance, you won't be surprised to find the melancholy "O Come O Come Emmanuel" appearing three times in this box, but each version at least attempts variety: A recorder and banjo Ren-fair take, and two solo piano versions (separated by three years) that are testimony to Stevens' development as a producer. Similarly, "Once in Royal David's City", obscure enough to be a hymnal B-side, is transformed from a fireside jam session on the first disc into a gorgeous reverb-laden music-box variation on the fifth. -Pitchfork Magazine

Question: Doesn't God need tremendous (if not infinite) energy to create something out of nothing? Is God's energy something rather than nothing? What is God's Mind made of if it is immaterial?

We shouldn’t think of God as literally made out of energy, Mark. For energy is a physical reality. Remember Einstein’s famous equation e = mc2? It tells us that energy and matter are basically interchangeable. Matter can be converted into energy and vice versa. As such, energy and matter are part of the created world. God created all the matter and energy in the universe.

So to say that God needed a tremendous amount of energy in order to create something out of nothing gets things backwards. He created the matter and energy out of nothing, that is to say, He created the matter and energy, period. What you really want to say, I think, is that God must be extraordinarily powerful, if not infinitely powerful, in order to create something from nothing. That claim is literally true. Indeed, the medieval theologian John Duns Scotus argued for divine omnipotence precisely because in order to bridge the chasm between being and non-being God would need to be infinitely powerful. Be that as it may, classical theism does affirm that God is omnipotent or maximally powerful.

Since God just is an infinite Mind, the question, “What is God’s Mind made of?” is no different than the question, “What is God made of?” The answer is that God is not made out of anything, anymore than your mind is made out of something. Philosophers routinely talk about realities that are not made out of anything, like minds, time, and mathematical objects. Unfortunately, we are so schooled in materialism that we find it difficult to free ourselves from its assumption.

So the only way to speak truthfully of God’s having great energy is metaphorical, not literal. But given the New Age talk of energy in a quasi-religious, impersonal, pantheistic sense, I think we would be well-advised to stay away from such misleading language. Better to talk literally and truthfully of God’s omnipotence and incorporeality.

An illustrated demonstration of the Moral Law to the tune of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

These video excerpts are from a little documentary film project I had the privilege to be a part of. During the course of a year, we journeyed through the United States and Europe asking one simple question: what is the meaning of life?

"These song's are my heart's cry for more of God's love in my life. I don't need religion or programs. I need love. It amazes me that God's love is completely based upon who He is and what He has done. My sincere prayer is that this album would reminds us what is truly important in this life - LOVE"

Luke Caldwell - Singer/Songwriter

"This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." John 15:12

Q&A with Dr. Clark Peddicord

"Why are you so afraid of subjective moral reasoning? Do you think we all are just going to start raping and pillaging just because we don't have a book telling us what to do? Are you afraid of that? I'm not because that's not what we are going to do. Yes, Nazis were bad but there were Christian Nazis and atheist Nazis. So I don't see... What are you so afraid of?"